Structure markers map the shape of your audio — beats, sections, buildups, drops, and silences — onto the timeline so automation lanes and visual effects can react to them intelligently.
What Are Structure Markers?
Structure markers are colour-coded regions placed on the timeline trim track. Each marker represents a detected audio event: a beat hit (purple), section boundary (cyan), buildup ramp (amber), energy drop (red), or silence gap (grey).
They are generated from the detected BPM and track duration. Once present, automation lanes and effects engines can use them to choreograph visual changes — for example, intensifying the Vortex engine during a drop region.
Tips
- →Hover over any marker in the timeline to see its type, label, timestamp, and intensity percentage.
- →Markers are visual aids — they do not modify your audio in any way.
Generating Markers
Click the 'Generate Markers' button in the timeline bar (bottom of the editor). Novus uses the detected BPM (shown in the Recommendations panel) and your track duration to place markers.
If BPM detection hasn't run yet, open the Recommendations panel and let it analyse your audio first. Accurate BPM makes markers land on the correct beat positions.
Tips
- →Re-generate markers after changing the detected BPM to get correctly aligned beat markers.
- →For tracks with tempo changes, markers will approximate — they are intended as reactive cues, not exact sync points.
Marker Colour Guide
Beat (purple/primary) — individual beat positions. Used by beat-reactive effects like Beat Flash and Screen Shake.
Section (cyan) — song sections such as verse, chorus, bridge. Useful for automation lane transitions.
Buildup (amber) — rising energy regions before a drop. Engines can ramp up intensity here.
Drop (red) — peak energy moments. Great for triggering burst effects, colour flashes, and visual peaks.
Silence (grey) — low-energy gaps. Effects can pull back to minimal animation during these regions.
Using Markers With Automation
Open the Automation panel and enable an automation lane. Set the trigger source to 'Buildup' or 'Drop' to drive a parameter automatically through those regions.
Combining structure markers with the Beat Flash and Screen Shake effects creates music-video-style visual choreography that reacts to the track's energy arc without manual keyframing.
Tips
- →Use Drop markers to trigger a Beat Flash with a slow decay for a cinematic impact frame.
- →Use Silence markers to fade logo glow to zero so quiet passages feel calm and intentional.